1. Connection between
public
communications of
elites and public
opinion about
international affairs
Oleh Ivanov. Department of sociology of the National
University “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy”, Kyiv, Ukraine.
Research interests:
sociology of mass communication, political and
electoral sociology, quantitative text analysis.

2. The object of study
Mass communication
•Publics
Viktor Yushchenko,
President of Ukraine. •Interest groups
•Electoral groups
…
Yulia Tymoshenko,
Prime Minister of ?
Ukraine.
Viktor Yanukovych
leader of “Party of
Regions”. P
l bu

3. Central hypothesis
•In electoral democracies
politicians say what their target
electorate want to hear.
Reason: “Nations in Transit 2008: Democratization
from Central Europe to Eurasia”

4. Central hypothesis
Reason: “Nations in Transit 2008: Democratization
from Central Europe to Eurasia”, ©Freedom
House, 2008
Consolidated Democracies Transitional Governments or Consolidated
(1.00-2.99) Electoral Democracies (4.00- Authoritarian Regimes
Slovenia 1.86 4.99) (6.00-7.00)
Estonia 1.93 Bosnia 4.11 Azerbaijan 6.00
Latvia 2.07 Ukraine4.25 Tajikistan 6.07
Hungary 2.14 Georgia 4.79 Kazakhstan 6.39
Czech Republic 2.14 Belarus 6.71
Lithuania 2.25 Semi-Consolidated Uzbekistan 6.86
Slovakia 2.29 Authoritarian Regimes or Turkmenistan 6.93
Poland 2.39 Internationally-Administered _____________________
Bulgaria 2.86 Areas (5.00-5.99) NOTES: The ratings are
Semi-Consolidated Moldova 5.00 based on a scale of 1 to 7,
Democracies (3.00-3.99) Armenia 5.21 with 1 representing the
Romania 3.36 Kosovo 5.21 highest level of
Croatia 3.64 Kyrgyzstan 5.93 democratic progress and 7
Serbia 3.79 Russia 5.96 the lowest.
Montenegro 3.79
Albania 3.82

5. Electoral split in Ukraine
Russia

6. Data delimitation
•Messages about Ukraine
and Russia relations.

7. Sources of Data
•Elites’ messages – official
web-sites.
- comprehensive archive of important
sayings
- convenient data sorting
- only politician influence upon direct
speech selection

8. Sources of Data
•Public opinion –
monitoring data sets.
- Weekly polls
- August 2005 – august 2008
- 152 data sets

9. Methodological issues
•Opinion vs messages
correspondence.
•Extensive textual data
coding

10. Opinion vs messages
correspondence
•Defining electorate.
•Marking out “Ukraine vs Russia” questions
• Support/ disapproval identification:

11. Model of representation
reproduction
•Time series of cross-
sectional data:
((Yi,t, xi), i = 1, . . . ,m, t ≥ 1)
•Regression model:
k
Yi ,t = ∑ β j ,t h j ( xi ) + ε i ,t , i = 1,...., m,
j =1
iid
with ε i ,t ~ Ν (0, σ 2 )

12. Model of representation
reproduction
•Regression model (matrix
form):
Yt = Fβ t + ε t , ε t ~ Ν(0, σ 2
Im ,
where
 Y1,t   h1 ( x1 ) ... hk ( x1 )   β1,t   ε 1,t 
     
Yt =  ... , F =  ...
 ...   βt =   ε t =  .
Ym ,t  h1 ( xm ) ... hk ( xm )
   β k ,t  ε k ,t 
     
If (βj,t)t≺1, messages content depends upon PO.

13. Textual data coding
•Russian and Ukrainian
languages.
•Negative & positive
attributes connected with
Ukraine and Russia
relations.

14. Universal structured
dictionary

15. Text structure analysis

16. Text structure analysis
Formatting Example of Meaning
code fromatted text
"font-size: 14pt", "font-
family: Tahoma; font-size:
УНІАН (www.unian.net) Source of
14pt", "color: #c80000" information
"color: #a9a9a9", "font-size:
10pt"
06.03.2009 14:29
Message time
and date
"font-size: 14pt", "font-
family: Tahoma; font-size:
VR gave consent for Message
14pt; font-weight: 700; color: appointing Valentyn heading
#c80000" Nalyvaychenko for
post of SBU chief
"font-size: 14pt", "font-
family: Tahoma; font-size:
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine
gave consent for appointing of Body of
Valentyn Nalyvaychenko for the
14pt"
post of the chief of the Security message .
Service of Ukraine (the SBU).